It is one of his most spectacular anti-immigration announcements to date. “I will sign today a decree asking the Ministries of Defense and Internal Security to prepare a center for 30,000 migrants in Guantanamo Bay,” said US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, January 29, adding that he ‘Act “criminals” in an irregular situation.
The White House then published the text, which is not a “decree” but a “memorandum”. He plans to bring to “full capacity” a center for the detention of migrants already existing on the basis to enclose “foreign criminals present illegally” in American territory. Donald Trump then promulgated the first law voted since his inauguration on January 20, an anti-immigration text providing for automatic detention of people in an irregular situation if they have been sentenced or prosecuted for certain crimes and crimes.
An announcement was made earlier by the US Secretary for Homeland Security Kristi Noem. The prison “is an asset, and we will continue to look for how to use all our assets to ensure the security of America,” she said.
During his campaign, Donald Trump constantly denounced a “invasion” of migrants, accused of “poisoning blood” of the United States and having caused a wave of crime – which no official statistical statistical demonstrates.
An already existing center, separated from the prison
“What you probably do not know is that there is already a migrant retention center there, it has existed for decades. So we will simply develop this center,” said Tom Homan, special advisor to Donald Trump on immigration, during a short exchange with the press.
In September, the New York Timeshaving obtained government documents, had revealed that the military base was indeed used to incarcerate certain migrants intercepted at sea. According to The American newspaper“This infrastructure was put in place in the mid -2000s to house Cubans and other people from the region who had been intercepted when they were fled their country. The Clinton administration had entrusted this role to Guantanamo in the 1990s. It was a humanitarian aid operation. ” The newspaper explains that migrants, which were 37 between 2020 and 2023, are placed in detention in a separate space of prison for prisoners accused of terrorism. This set of tents currently has a capacity of 120 people, far from 30,000. And only four people were present in 2024.
Certain associations denounce their treatment on site, on the basis of testimonies explaining that migrants are monitored when they call a lawyer, and that rats are attracted by the deplorable hygiene conditions of the place.
An “illegally occupied Cuban territory”
Guantanamo prison was opened in 2002, within an American military base located on the island of Cuba, as part of the “war against terrorism” declared by ex-president George W. Bush After the attacks of September 11, 2001. She saw hundreds of prisoners parade, including some members of Al-Qaeda, and caused bright debates from the United States, because of its extreme conditions of detention and its use of torture. The former Democratic-presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama both formulated the wish to close the prison, without ever getting there during their respective terms.
“In the form of a brutal act, the new American government announces detention at the naval base of Guantanamo, located in illegally occupied Cuban territory, of thousands of migrants which he expelled by force,” reacted Cuban President Miguel Diaz on X -Canel. “The American government’s decision to incarcerate migrants at the Guantanamo naval base, in the enclave where he created unlimited torture and detention centers, testifies to contempt for the human condition and international law”, Reacted the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.
Today, he remains 15 prisoners in Guantanamo. Among them, three are eligible for a transfer, three others to an examination of their file for a potential release, seven have been charged and two convicted, according to the Ministry of Defense. Nine men died in detention, according to a count of New York Times. An inmate was transferred to American soil for his trial and purges a life sentence in a Federal Kentucky prison, the American daily said.